by D. Levesque
We both duck low behind the rock we are hiding behind. I can hear the waves hitting the shore, and smell fish in the air. It’s dark out, so I’m pretty sure we can’t be seen, but then I remember we aren’t going after a human, but a Vampire—a Vampire who has turned feral, supposedly.
After Lady Tonlia had left and with Marrisa feeling like something was off, Lori explained. She didn’t think that this Sir William Tonlia had gone feral. Something else was up. The last time a Vampire went feral, as Lori said, was over a thousand years ago. This was an excuse for something else. Both Lori’s and Marrisa’s cop radars were going off.
Hearing a squealing noise, we look over just as someone opens the door to the shack, their body silhouetted in the light.
“You might as well be agreeable guests and come in,” says a cultured male voice.
“Shit,” Marrisa whispers. “Bet they heard your stomping around?”
“How do you know it was me?” I whisper back defensively. Yes, it might have been me, but maybe it was her.
“I can hear you both, and I can also smell the human that is with you, Changeling. Interesting that you are both together.”
“Shit,” Marrisa says again. Damn, but she loves that swear world.
“William Tonlia, I am a M.A.G.I. Bounty Hunter here for your arrest,” Marrisa shouts at the man in the doorway.
“Very well. Do come in. Marrisa Lalouton, I assume? I am sorry, I do not know your partner, but since he is human, I am sure I will forget him before the night is done.”
Marrisa walks around the large boulder we had been hiding behind and heads toward the shack, and I follow. When we get closer, she shows William Tonlia her badge. He looks at it and nods. She slaps me, and I get the message and take out my badge and show it to him as well.
He looks confused at first but then says, “Ah, so you are an official Bounty Hunter as well. And oh my. A level ten Magus? Interesting. Please, do come in,” William says, waving us in.
He heads back into the shack. The thing isn’t very large, and I can tell it’s an old fishing shack that has been converted into a cottage.
“Do you think this is a trap?” I whisper to Marrisa.
She snorts at me. “Everything is a trap when you’re a Bounty Hunter. Keep your eyes and ears open. I would say your Magical senses, but you’re as blind as a babe for that right now.”
What? We have Magical senses? Oh, man, I want to learn that! I don’t tell her that since if I ask for it, she will deny me just because I want it.
Once we get inside, we look around. The place is actually pretty comfortable looking. There is a bed near the back of the room, and closer to the door is a small kitchen with a table and four chairs. No sofa, though. On the kitchen counter is a television that is currently turned off.
“Please, sit. Can I offer you a drink?” The man asks, waving to the chairs on our side of the table, as he walks to the other side.
Now that we are inside, I can see him better. He is white-skinned like his sister, but his eyes are normal-looking, human-looking, I mean. He’s five feet eleven or so and muscular, with long, black hair and a goatee. He’s a good-looking man, and he’s wearing black slacks, with a white buttoned shirt. The top two buttons are undone, and he has no hair on his chest. The man looks like he was sculpted from the best white marble at the hands of a master sculptor. Where his sister was beautiful, he surpasses that by a mile. He would turn the heads of any sex, walking through a room.
“Su—” I start to answer politely, but Marrisa talks over me.
“No, we are good. Now, are you going to come peacefully, or do we need to get rough?” Marrisa asks him, placing both her hands on the back of the chair that William had offered us.
“Ah. Right to business. I know how competent you are. If my sister sent you, that means she is getting desperate to have me silenced,” William says, taking a chair himself and sitting down. On the table are cups and a pot of coffee, with all the fixings.
William pours himself a cup, takes a sip, and closes his eyes in appreciation. Finally, he opens them again and looks at us. “What are the terms?”
“You come in quietly. You put this on,” Marrisa says and throws a set of handcuffs on the table, but they aren’t like anything I have ever seen before. The metal is black, and there are figures etched on the metal. The chain between the two cuffs is longer, about a foot wide. “We bring you to H.Q and you are put in a cell. I have the paperwork and I know that you are the one that has been making people disappear here in Maine, near Bangor. You admit to those crimes, and it might go easier on you for sentencing. Then, once that’s done, I am sure you will live out the rest of your life in a cell.”
“Ah, and are those the terms on the Bounty?” William asks, taking another slow sip of his coffee. I can smell it from here, and honestly, I have not had a cup in days and would love to have one.
Marrisa doesn’t answer him right away, but then almost reluctantly, she says, “No. The terms on the original bounty was you dead.”
“Ah,” William says, nodding as if expecting that. “And yet, you are giving me different terms than the Bounty. Why is that, Bounty Hunter Lalouton?”
“Marrisa is fine,” she tells him with a glare. Hell, I’m glad I’m not the only one she glares at. “And we as Bounty Hunters have some leeway when it comes to the terms. Things change. Things are fluid.”
“Ah, but what is fluid enough here to make you change them for me?”
“Your sister said you went feral,” Marrisa says, and the cup that William had been lifting to his mouth stops and then shatters as his grip tightens. Now it’s his turn to glare at Marrisa.
“She dares?” William growls, and suddenly the man who looked so handsome when I first saw him, looks more like a hunter, a killer, a force to be reckoned with. I can almost feel a pressure building in the room.
Marrisa doesn’t say anything as she stares at the anger on Sir William Tonlia’s face. There is such anger there, I would not be surprised if he got up and flipped the table.
“She would. Now care to tell us what this is really about?” Marrisa asks him.
That gets William’s attention. His anger disappears as suddenly as it had come, and he looks at Marrisa in surprise. “What?”
“Sir Tonlia,” Marrisa starts, but he puts a hand up.
“Please, William will do. If you are allowing me to call you Marrisa, it’s the least I can do. And this young man is?”
“I’m Kevin, sir,” I tell him with an awkward bow.
“Ah, manners. Rare on a human. Thank you, Kevin. As you were saying?” William says, looking back at Marrisa, who is glaring at me. What? I wasn’t the one who asked for my name. Fucking hell, why is she pissed at me?
“William,” she says, “We know that your sister saying you are feral is a coverup for something else. We have not heard-and we checked our own police records-of a Vampire going feral in over a thousand years. So when your sister came to see us, our suspicions were up already. If I remember correctly, you and your sister are both vying for a seat on the Council?”
William doesn’t respond right away. Finally, he sighs and begins to pick up the broken pieces of his coffee cup, placing them into a napkin. I notice that there isn’t anything wrong with his hand. No cut, no blood. No marks to show that he just squeezed a coffee mug into a hundred pieces.
“You are very much your father’s daughter. Very astute. Yes. Both my sister and I both qualify for a seat on the Council. But the difference between me and her is, I do not want it,” William says, getting up and placing the napkin with the broken pieces into a garbage can under the sink in the small kitchen.
“What? That makes no sense. You are of the Tonlia family line. The oldest and the strongest family line of all the Vampires in your homeworld of Vamir,” Marrisa tells him. “Why would you not want it? If anyone has the right, it would be you as the Eldest.”
“You are correct. Before he died, my father, may the Dark Lord keep him
, was one who pushed me to become his replacement. But there is a difference between him and myself. I do not want power. My pursuits lie elsewhere.”
“What can be more enticing than power?” Marrisa says with a frown.
“Knowledge,” William answers, opening his hands wide. He grabs another coffee mug from the cupboard and pours himself another cup of coffee before sitting down again.
He again gestures for us to sit down, and this time I mentally tell Marrisa, screw you, and sit down. I grab a cup and pour myself some coffee, adding some sugar and some cream. The entire time, Marrisa is glaring at me, but I ignore her. Taking a sip of the coffee, I enjoy its slightly bitter taste with a hint of caramel.
Sighing in pleasure, I say, “Damn, this is some good coffee.”
“Isn’t it?” William says, lifting his cup in salute and taking a sip of his as well.
“Listen,” Marrisa snarls. She’s angry enough that she grabs the chair and sits down in it, with her arms on the table facing William. “That makes no sense! Everyone wants power. You’re a damn Vampire! It literally means power!”
“Ah, not quite, but yes,” William says. At my confused look, he explains. “Let me explain for the human. Vampire in our language means Powerful Being. So it is assumed that we all crave power. And we do. But the kind of power I crave cannot be taken. It must be learned.”
“What kind of learning?” I ask him, taking another sip of my coffee as Marrisa continues to glare at me.
She had told me before this mission started that I was to keep my mouth shut. Yeah, piss off, Marrisa. You aren’t training me. I’m not your boy.
“The knowledge that Earth sciences have to offer, of course,” William says.
What does he mean by Earth sciences? Does he mean what we humans know? I look at Marrisa, and her mouth is open in astonishment.
“You want to go to school on Earth?” she blurts out incredulously.
Chapter Eleven
“Wait, Vampires can go to school here?”
“No, they can’t,” Marrisa starts but then stops herself and takes a deep breath before starting again. “No they normally cannot. But if they are given an exemption from a high council member, they can come to Earth and learn at any of the universities.”
“You mean like an exemption from your dad?” I ask her, looking at William shrewdly. No, there is no way he did all this just to get her here, did he? William looks at me and smiles. Holy shit, he did. He created this ruse to get Marrisa here so that she can ask her dad for that exemption.
“No, I mean yes, my dad could if he wanted to…” her words fade off as she looks at William suspiciously.
“Did you just play your sister?” she asks William, and I can hear some respect in her tone.
“As I can tell from his expression that the young man has figured out, yes, I did. I created this situation in order to have my sister send one of the best Bounty Hunters after me. And that would be none other than the daughter of a certain Council member.”
“My dad,” Marrisa says softly.
“Your dad. Sir Magus Targun Lalouton. Lead Council on the board. The one man who can give me what I want. But in order to do so, I need to get to him. And my sister has been very good at keeping me away from him so that I couldn’t ask,” William says with a grin.
“And so all this,” Marrisa says, waving at the cabin and the area. “It was all created in order to get her to think you went feral and have her send me after you?”
“Correct. I did not expect my sister to use me going feral as the excuse. Though I do actually own this cabin. As one of the Royals from Vamir, I am allowed to own land on Earth. This is one of the pieces I chose. I do like it,” he says, looking around the small cabin fondly.
“Wait, so all this was just to get me here?” Marrisa says, and there is irritation in her voice now.
“Yes,” William answers, and he gets up from his chair, bows to her, and says with the utmost respect, “Lady Marrisa Lalouton, I beseech you to ask your father for permission for me, a lowly servant of the Galactic Folks, to be allowed to go to a school of my choice on Earth, for the duration of whatever program I qualify for.”
“Lady Marrisa Lalouton, I beseech you to ask your father for permission for me, a lowly servant of the Galactic Folks, to be allowed to go to a schooling of my choice on Earth, for the duration of whatever program I qualify for.”
Marrisa’s hands ball into fists and she yells at the ceiling. “I hate being used like this! What about all those people who have been going missing in Maine?” she asks suddenly, pointing an accusing finger at him.
“That is my doing. I paid people off,” he says with a shrug. “Many of those humans were quite happy to receive money and to disappear.”
“You didn’t kill anyone?” Marrisa asks suspiciously.
“I did not. If I want your father’s help, it would not be prudent for me to have truly killed them, correct? Kevin, was it? Can you reach behind you on the countertop and grab that little book there, please?” William says to me.
I turn to where he is pointing, and on the end of the kitchen counter is a small blue book, a notebook with spiral binding. I reach over and grab it, and then turn back and offer it to him, but he shakes his head.
“No. That is for you. Inside it, you will find a name and number for all the missing people. I told them one of the stipulations for getting the rest of their money, as I only paid them part of it, was that they would need to keep the cell phone I gave them and answer it and the questions from whomever contacts them. They know if they lie, they will not get the rest of the money.”
“What is to stop them from not talking to whoever calls and just taking the money you gave them and running?” I ask him with a raised eyebrow.
“Ah, spoken like a true human,” William says with a grin, and his teeth are now exactly like his sister’s. Long and sinister. “You are correct. They can. But the money is the incentive. I only gave them a small percentage of the amount I told them I would.”
“You are serious about this, aren’t you?” Marrisa asks him.
“Very. I wish to learn about the science that this world has,” William says with a laugh. “There is so much to learn!”
“Like hot water, maybe?” I mumble under my breath, remembering the shower last night.
“Exactly!” William says, making me jump in surprise that he heard me. I had spoken pretty quietly, I thought. “Hot water! The only time I get a hot shower is when I come here to Earth. Even this tiny shack in the middle of nowhere has a hot shower!” he says, pointing to a door at the back of the room that I had assumed led to a closet. Guess it’s the bathroom. “While in my large room in my castle I must still use cold water. Why? Because we use technology minimally. We use what we need and that’s it. Anything else screams humanity and so we don’t touch it.”
“That makes no sense,” I tell him with a frown. “I have seen phones used and even lights.”
“Ah, have you? Miss Lalouton, do you live in a house or apartment?” he asks her suddenly.
“I live in an apartment building,” she says hesitantly, as if she’s not sure where his questions are going.
“And how many floors?” he asks her.
“Eight, I live on the third.”
“And is there an elevator?” he asks her.
“No, of course not! That’s a human thing!” she says in disgust.
“Right. Kevin, where do you live on Earth. A house or apartment?” William asks, turning to me.
“Apartment, and before you ask, I live on the twelfth floor, and yes, we have elevators. I can’t imagine living there and having to climb all those stairs. Hell, my building has twenty-seven floors.”
“Ah, and Miss Lalouton, what floor do you live on once more?” William asks her.
Marrisa, I can see, is hesitant to answer him again, even though he knows the answer already. “She lives on the third,” I offer. She turns to me and glares.
“Right. A
nd why do you not live on the top floor, Kevin? Of this twenty-seven floor building?” William asks me. Okay, now the questions he is asking makes no sense.
“Because it would be too expensive. I mean, the top floor is for those who have money. It’s where the penthouse and such is.”
“Ah, and that is where the difference is. The top floor of a building where Miss Lalouton lives is for the poor. Because there is no elevator, and they must walk up all those flights of stairs. She lives on the third floor, not the first, where it would be the most expensive, but not on the eighth, where rent would be cheaper. And the reason for all this?” William asks, looking at Marrisa and me with a smile.
“Because it’s human,” Marrisa growls.
“Yes, because it’s human. Or because it was made by a human. We will be approaching a stage soon where if we allow humans to keep using technology and we do not begin to use it ourselves, we shall be at a gross disadvantage in the galaxy at large. My aim is to get this education and use it to our advantage. That is what I want to ask your father. A chance to allow someone like me, who has power, money, and prestige, to bring knowledge to our worlds.”
“You’re serious?” Marrisa asks, and there is confusion in her voice. William just smiles at her.
“You want to make it so that you are not overtaken by us humans with tech, don’t you?” I say in the silence.
William bows my way from across the table. “Technology is soon going to be important, even in a world of Magic. I do not want us to be overtaken by it. By understanding it, we can hide from it better.”
“Makes sense,” I tell him with a shrug. “I think I understand. Especially when you have things like facial recognition with CCTV cameras all over the place, and the internet where information is at your fingertips, and even technology that looks so amazing that it borders on Magic, well in my world. I guess by knowing more about it, you’ll be able to counter it.”
